1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus and methods for performing decimation.
2. Description of Related Art
Voice processing is a real time issue. Processing voice data requires accepting the data at a very high rate since accepting data at a relative lower rate results in lost information and degraded performance. Moreover, voice data processing itself is often a lengthy task. The acceptance of data at a high rate combined with such long processing tasks often demand the use of parallel execution units operating at very high rates. Such execution units typically consume large amounts of power and significant amounts of silicon area. Therefore, before processing takes place on voice data, such data is often routed to a `decimator.`
A decimator accepts data at a high rate and generates equivalent information at a relatively low rate, such that data processing can be performed comfortably. `Decimation` is a process for accumulating information at regular intervals and combining the information such that combined result still represents the original information, but can be processed at a lower rate than the rate at which the original information is available.
A decimator is a demanding logic element. A decimator must accommodate a high rate of incoming data and feed that data to different stages of a decimator apparatus performing various decimator functions. In the past, a serial approach was used to implement the function. Disadvantages of the serial approach include the number of components required, thereby driving up the costs of such devices, and the time delay introduced by serial processing.